Looking
by abc79-de
Summary: LIT, prequel to A Sleepless Night.


AN: Prequel to 'A Sleepless Night'. Obviously a LIT, and yeah. That's it.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own it. If I did, it'd be a lot different.  
  
'I look for you.  
  
Rationally, the way my mind works best, I know you won't be there. That doesn't stop me from searching for your face. Your profile. Your distinct swagger as you walk to your destination. What part of my mind does it, so unconsciously, so enthusiastically? I look for you in cars going opposite directions down small county roads. I look for you on a street, when I'm just out wandering aimlessly spending a day wandering in and out of shops. I peer down the next row of stacks in the library, lest you be in the middle of the row, with your hair falling slightly into your eyes as you turn the page on the book you're contemplating checking out, even though you're halfway through chapter two. You take more convincing than most people.  
  
What would I do if you were in that passing car? Probably crash into the nearest curb. Every now and then, I let myself get all worked up over the idea of you waiting at my doorstep when I arrive home after a long day. Sometimes it's the only thing that gets me through the monotony of my days. You'll be there, looking into me as only you can, and we don't have to say anything. You take me into your arms and show me that I'm still alive. That the blood is really still circulating through my veins. I haven't been so sure these days. The only thing I can't rationalize to myself is why, after all this time, is the thought of being near you all that brings my heart any relief.  
  
It's absurd; you don't need to tell me that. I'm the logical one, remember? The thing you loved and hated most about me? You thought it was great, unless it applied to you. With you, you wanted me to just be myself in the moment and not think about anything other than my happiness. This enormous gift you were trying to give to me, and I would treat you like you were trying to cut my right hand off. Funny the things you don't see until it's too late. We've both learned that lesson the hardest of ways, haven't we?  
  
At any rate, I know it's absurd, because you don't even know where I live. You don't sit around thinking you're going to see me walking around the next street corner. You don't think you'll go into a movie theater and see me sitting two rows up, laughing in all the same places that you do. You finally got your life together, and found a way to be happy. At least, that's how I see you in my dreams. The irony of the time we were together, all the focus put on me making something with my life is that you finally feel fulfilled in whatever is filling your days, while I, despite doing everything I had ever intended to do, feel empty.  
  
I expect that's all there is for me now, is the knowledge of the irony of life. I know that I've lost you, in more ways than one. I live in my own personal hell, desperately searching for the man that I pushed away with two consecutive letters. I didn't even recognize my own voice that night. But the look on your face told me that you already knew that.  
  
All that there is left for me to do, this night before one of the biggest milestones in my young life, is to make the decision to let you go. All of you. That means I'll never again scan a crowd twice, just to make sure. I'll never think I heard your voice in a restaurant, straining to see where you could possibly be, while the very nice man I'm out with thinks I'm having some sort of delusional episode. I'll stop seeing your face that night when I lied to you and refused you, every night in my dreams. Not because I deserve to, but because it must be done someday. Or so everyone tells me.  
  
Perhaps after tomorrow. It's a big crowd to be scanned, and there's no telling who might be there. Not that you of all people would show up to something as trite and traditional as a graduation. Hell, I don't even want to go. But it's expected of me, and we both know how I feel about that kind of thing. Or at least, you used to know. You knew better than anyone.  
  
So, despite all I know to be true, I continue to look for you.'  
  
Jess dropped the letter, back onto the floor it had fallen onto from some random book he'd taken to put away neatly on the shelf. After reading it, the weight of the paper was too much for him to hold. His mind went back to that night, that she'd showed up on his doorstep, not so long ago. He thought he had been dreaming. The vision of her standing in the dimly lit hallway of his building, looking lost and found all at the same time would forever be in his memory.  
  
They never spoke about anything other than how to get a life together as soon as possible. They both spoke of it as if it had been planned out in detail all along. Not as if she showed up, and without thought, he let her in and the next day they found this apartment. She had all her belongings that mattered to her in the world, her books, and a few personal effects, some pictures of them together in the back of her car. Everything else she'd planned to buy new.  
  
She was out pounding the pavement in search of a new job. He knew she'd get an impressive one, something that her dreams were made of, because she had the education and experience to get such a career. It was his day off, and instead of looking for a better job, he was doing something for her. For them. He was going through their books, weeding out things they had doubles of, and intermixing both collections on the new bookcases he had gone out earlier this morning and purchased, while he put the doubles into an empty box so he could take it to a used bookstore and maybe get enough cash to get another piece of furniture before the next payday.  
  
He was only a quarter of the way through the books, when this letter had fallen out of her copy of 'A Farewell to Arms'. He had been shocked that she even owned a copy of the novel, but then he figured it was something she had begrudgingly bought when it was assigned to her in some literature class. He wondered if she had thought about him when she took it off the shelf in the store. If she could hear his voice in her ear, telling her to give the author just one more chance as she handed over the cash to the clerk.  
  
Of course, reading the letter that had been encapsulated in the book, he now knew the answer. Part of him already knew that she hadn't ever really rid herself of him, just as she had been a constant companion to him in her physical absence. The simple words she spoke to him the night she showed up at his tiny apartment not so long ago poured out volumes to him.  
  
He knew the pain in her words that she had hurriedly etched on the white notebook paper, how much she hated the fact that her weakness was permanently recorded, and at the same time, relieved to have some of the emotion out of her mind where she had locked it away from the world. That she would probably blush in embarrassment, however slight or engulfing, if she knew that he had read of her tormenting thoughts. Especially since she hadn't quite gotten her bearings here in this large city yet. Mostly, he believed, because they had made no commitment, verbally anyway, to be with the other. He wondered if she was concerned about frightening him off, or if she had forgotten the letter altogether.  
  
Whatever the case, he wanted to frame this document, and run to the rooftop and profess his love for her for the whole of the city to hear him. The fact that she had spent the last four years in the same agony, just as he had with the constant searching for something that was constantly going to elude him. But it wasn't any longer.  
  
She had come looking for him.  
  
That was enough for him, and all it took to convince him. All he needed was for her to be here. At least, for now. He looked around their apartment, filled only with a few precious pictures on the walls, along with her Yale diploma. A new bed in the bedroom, and now a few bookcases along the white walls of the living room. Boxes lie scattered, still full of books and other personal items that they hadn't unpacked, mostly because they had no place to put them away to. For now, the boxes served as chairs, nightstands, and tables from which to eat their food.  
  
With a faint smile, he bent down and retrieved the paper off the floor, refolded it gingerly, and took the book back off the shelf. He returned it inside its hiding place, and put the book back next to his copy of the book on the shelf, the only double set in the whole apartment to survive his sorting. He took the next book from the box he had been unloading, in an attempt to get as much done for her as possible before she arrived home from a long day of interviews.  
  
AN: As I said, this is a prequel, to A Sleepless Night, and it gives some more embellishment and detail to the story line. I would recommend checking it out, if you enjoyed this. Thanks to all of you who reviewed the first story, the reviews were wonderful and kept me thinking about how to add more to the idea. 


End file.
